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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29653890">Whisper on a windstorm</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/apathyinreverie/pseuds/apathyinreverie'>apathyinreverie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, BAMF Harry Potter, Family, Fix-It, Gen, Grey Lord Harry Potter, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Politics, Powerful Harry Potter, Romance, Time Travel, not very light side friendly, of sorts, though no bashing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:48:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,074</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29653890</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/apathyinreverie/pseuds/apathyinreverie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Wizarding Britain is where it all starts falling apart.</p><p>(A time travel AU, where magic tends to hold on tight to her few chosen champions, never letting go, if anything only ever choosing to elevate them forever further.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy &amp; Harry Potter, Orion Black &amp; Harry Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>229</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>712</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The 'Greater Good'</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Wizarding Britain is where it all starts falling apart.</p><p>Of course, no one notices at first, the end of the world as they know it isn’t anything sudden or even particularly noticeable, no abrupt change to tip anyone off. No, it’s a slow, creeping process, an incremental deterioration stretched over generations of magical folk, so slow in fact that most people don’t even realize it’s happening at all, neither in Britain nor anywhere else in the world, gradually moving ever-towards the abyss from where there is no turning back.</p><p>Admittedly, he himself only notices that anything is happening several years after the war, more than a decade after Voldemort’s end, after they finally achieved the peace that entire generations of witches and wizards had fought for so desperately, years of peace and an entire country rebuilding itself. They never notice that one of the very foundations of everything they are, has simply disappeared. The fact that Magick is dying.</p><p>Harry likely would have remained just as ignorant as the rest of their world’s magical population, if it weren’t for his travels, for his ‘evolution’ – for lack of a better word – that made him something else entirely, never quite knowing what exactly was dragging him onwards, forever following that tugging at his very core that led him along, instinct driving him onwards, around the globe, until he had touched upon just about every single corner of their planet. Until he finally realized that something was wrong.</p><p>By then, his connection to Magick herself had already culminated into something entirely different, having turned him into one of her champions, one of her chosen emissaries. A Lord of Magick. Or, more specifically, a Grey Lord, chosen by Magick herself, the neutral center that Dark and Light are supposed to balance themselves upon. As a Lord of Magick he himself makes no difference between light or dark or even white or black magic, the less… socially acceptable extremes of either. Magic comes easily to him and he takes all magic as it comes. He doesn’t know why – or even how exactly – he ended up in the very select group of wizards that can claim to have been chosen as Magick’s chosen champions – a group which, by the way, also houses Merlin himself – but there is no mistaking the fact that Magick herself made it so, forever humming in his ear, playful and all-encompassing and terrifyingly vast and perfectly gentle at the same time.</p><p>Harry even knows that he is one of the very first to notice, might possibly even be <em>the</em> first, if only due to his status, due to his connection to Magick herself, due to her mournful lament softly echoing within his very core from the very moment he attains his new title, a title so very significant, even if he himself never even knew to reach for it at all.</p><p>Turns out the balance of magic, the forever-shifting, oh-so-fragile balance between dark and light and grey is far more essential than people these days are aware.</p><p>By the time he realizes it’s already far too late. Britain might be where it started but just because wizards decided to draw a couple lines on a map defining their country separate from others, that in no way applies to Magick herself.</p><p>Magick – like everything else on this planet – is defined by balance. A balance between light and dark, centered within the neutral twilight that is grey magic. Like Harry’s magic.</p><p>And the balance has already toppled, Wizarding Britain being the first country to twist itself into something that is utterly unnatural in its pure brightness, having eradicated pretty much all of dark magic from their entire island, but certainly not the only one leaning heavily towards the Light. And with each country less inclined towards the Dark, the balance shifting slightly further towards its own end, it becomes increasingly easy for more countries to follow in their wake, more parts of the world shifting. The very definition of a slippery slope, as standards of what is considered ‘light enough’ in an international setting shift ever further, and most countries following happily along.</p><p>Sure, everyone notices that there seems to be a problem with more squibs being born every year in most parts of the world, that the standard of what is considered ‘magically powerful’ seems to be forever decreasing. But for all that a lot of people try their best to figure out how to fix those particular problems, they never realize that those things are just symptoms of a greater overlying problem.</p><p>Wizarding Britain is where it starts, but it doesn’t end there.</p><p>With dark wizards having been practically eradicated in Britain, either driven out of the country or those few who remain now forbidden from practicing their naturally dark magic, dark creatures hunted nearly to extinction, schools and society making even grey wizards convert towards light magic for decades, the balance is out of whack. And the death of Magick’s last Dark Lord turns out to be the final blow. There is no balance being kept any longer.</p><p>An entire country entirely light, Britain rejoicing at that very fact, no one even being aware of all that is shifting beneath their very feet. Because without dark magic, there is no grey magic and with no grey magic there is no magic at all.</p><p>Britain’s zeal topples the balance.</p><p>It’s like a cancer spreading through the ley lines towards other corners of the world. Magic is failing. And the world is falling right alongside it.</p><p>Harry feels it, in his very bones he feels the magic of this world shifting, screaming at him in pain because it is dying, consuming itself whole in the glaring bright blaze of light magic without its balancing counterpart.</p><p>The light side won . And now they are all paying the price.</p><p>+++</p><p>Like everyone else, Harry wasn’t aware of anything happening at all, at least not at first.</p><p>They won the war and Voldemort was dead and thus everyone was going to be treated fairly from that point forward. Salutations and all that.</p><p>Except, things didn’t go nearly as smoothly as they had all simply assumed.</p><p>It was years down the line until he himself noticed that something was wrong, something going on that wizards all around the world were complaining about, magic at age-old sites drying up, magical beings dying out, wards failings, archaic protections just wisping away into nothing practically over night.</p><p>By the time he finally realizes what’s going on, it is already too late to do anything about it. Not that the people Harry knows, the people he fought alongside of during the war would even believe him if he told them, much less want to change anything about the current status quo.</p><p>Their side won. Why would they want to give up any of their hard-won power.</p><p>Harry knows he shouldn’t point fingers, at least not indiscriminately, no matter how honestly… abhorring he finds the country he himself had quite the part in saving these days. He knows that normal people simply don’t know any better, knows that most of the people he comes across are truly just trying to make the world the best place it can be in their eyes. Very few people do something because they truly intend harm to others. Most are just selfishly intent on themselves and their own views and what they think is best, and simply forget to consider whether their image of utopia will apply to anyone else at all.</p><p>He knows all that and he can even understand it.</p><p>So, he really shouldn’t be pointing fingers due to other people’s ignorance. If only because it took Harry himself several years to notice that anything was happening as well.</p><p>Thing is, as people are wont to do, ‘his side’ as the winners of the last war they are taking things to far, taking it ever further in their zeal to eradicate the so reviled dark magic. To the point where Harry wonders what happened to everyone’s view of what justice is supposed to look like, until he himself no longer feels comfortable with his friends’ methods. At all.</p><p>+++</p><p>Harry feels the dark scowl on his face as he makes his way towards the temporary holding rooms at the DMLE.</p><p>He was just on his way to visit Hermione at the DoM, when he overheard two Aurors gleefully talk about ‘catching that Malfoy brat in using dark magic’ and how they can’t wait for the interrogation and taking ‘those dark wizards’ down a few notches and ‘we always knew there was no rehabilitating their sort’.</p><p>That sort of sentiment is everything Harry hates about the current state of his own country. Never mind the fact that it almost sounded like some Aurors in all their wisdom decided to put a little kid into their holding cells.</p><p>Harry is doing his best to keep his temper in check, determined to see for himself if the DMLE really has fallen that far in the few years he has been gone, striding past the various guards stationed around this part of the DMLE, getting enthusiastic greetings from pretty much everyone who spots him, though they do eye him somewhat nervously once they spot the dark scowl on his face, some of them still able to recognize what him in a truly bad mood looks like. Harry might have resigned as an Auror quite some time ago, having quickly realized that spending his life hunting dark wizards is just about the last thing he actually wants to do, but he is still <em>Harry ‘The Savior’ Potter</em> and thus he has a sort of all-access pass to wherever he wants to go within the entire Ministry.</p><p>It’s not a particularly good day, or even a particularly good week or month or even year, all things considered. His frustrations with everything that’s been happening as well as with everyone around him mounting towards a sort of crescendo that has him in a rather abysmal mood almost constantly these days.</p><p>Magick is dying and Harry is powerless to stop it.</p><p>He tried, magic, did he try. But even Magick herself is past the point now where she believes in her own survival, perfectly aware that she is ever-dwindling from this world.</p><p>But just because he knows that Magick cannot be saved anymore in no way means that he is going to accept any of the other bullshit his own country’s zeal for the eradication of all things Dark is leading to in an increasingly overt manner. Zeal, which apparently now culminated in some random Aurors gleefully cackling to themselves for arresting a child, more or less for the crime of accidental magic while unlucky enough to have been born with a dark core in a purely light country.</p><p>So, yes, he is furious by the time he reaches the holding cells.</p><p>Which isn’t at all helped by the sight of Scorpius, standing as close to Draco – who is in there with him – as he can without actually stepping on his father’s shoes, the child’s eyes huge, scared, honestly terrified of the situation he has found himself in.</p><p>Harry only feels his scowl darken as he glances over the boy’s head, meets Draco’s eyes, sees the same, if muted, sort of terror as his son’s reflected in his old schoolyard nemesis’ eyes. Because his kid did accidental magic and just happened to be born with a naturally dark-aligned core and their country has slipped down that slippery slope of political zeal so far they are stooping to punishing children for things they cannot help.</p><p>Harry clenches his teeth.</p><p>He absolutely hates what Wizarding Britain has become, abhors that the Ministry is worse than Voldemort ever tried to be, not only tilted in the opposite direction but ready to eradicate an entire branch of magic in their endless zeal. The worst part? His friends are very much part of it, patting themselves on the back for erasing the evil that was Voldemort and not even seeing that they are doing to the dark side what the Death Eaters had been trying to do to muggleborns.</p><p>Sure, they are nicer about it, passing laws and putting people in jail instead of outright hunting them down and murdering them in their own houses.</p><p>But the fact that they are ever-deepening the divide within their society, making naturally dark magic something to be reviled, that they are punishing people for something they were born with, is the exact same. The Death Eaters hunted muggles for not having magic, the Light Side hunts those with the wrong sort.</p><p>He feels his mouth tilting down, still meeting Draco’s eyes.</p><p>Then, Harry is taking a couple of quick strides over, undeterred by the fact that he, as someone who definitely doesn’t work at the DMLE anymore isn’t supposed to enter these rooms or even be able to do so in the first place. He is Harry Potter. He gets away with shit like this.</p><p>He crosses the room, a quick, non-verbal notice-me-not ward springing up around the room with barely a thought to make sure no one sees what he is about to do next. He reaches out, sets a hand on Scorpius’ shoulder, lets his own magic spread out through the child, lets it cleanse Scorpius’ core, lets his magic erase the dark tint of the child’s natural magic, masks it with his own, purely grey, perfectly neutral magic. It’s only temporary, just a resetting of the balance of Scorpius’ natural magic, the cover of Harry’s magic likely to dissipate within a day or so.</p><p>But it’s enough to prevent this entire mess from ever going further. Harry thinks it’s already gone far enough.</p><p>Scorpius’ magic easily concedes to his, if anything it just tucks itself happily underneath the cover of Harry’s own magic, unbothered by the grey magic spreading through him. Children’s magic is so much more malleable, tends to be mostly grey until genetics and family magics and life choices truly start molding their core one way or the other.</p><p>It barely takes him a couple of seconds to perfectly balance out Scorpius’ magic for now, before he is letting the attention-diversion ward around them fall once more, lest anyone notices Harry ever cast any wards at all, even as he glances up again to look at Draco. Whose eyes are wide, honest astonishment in them, most likely at what he had been able to feel coming off Harry in those few seconds where he let his magic out without the usual restraint he constantly keeps on it.</p><p>Not like Harry ever bothered to let people in on the fact that he is the first Grey Lord of Magic Britain has seen since Merlin himself, the first Lord of Magick in several centuries worldwide. Then again, he doubts most wizards these days would even know what that means anymore. Though Draco clearly does, going by his still widened eyes.</p><p>Harry just nods at him once and then turns towards the door.</p><p>“Who in Merlin’s name did the reading on the kid?” he demands, makes his tone angrily exasperated instead of the honest fury he is still feeling.</p><p>An Auror guard appears in the door, glances at him. “Thornston,” the man replies, eyebrows raised, like he can’t think of a single reason why Harry would be in this particular room. “Said he’s never seen a kid with a core as dark as that one.” A slightly curled lip. “But what do you expect from their ilk.”</p><p>Harry purposely narrows his eyes, lets at least some of his honest anger bleed into his expression at anyone talking about a little kid like that, magical affiliations entirely aside. “And none of you found it suspicious that Thornston, who we all know has a vendetta against the Malfoys, made that claim? Did anyone bother to <em>check</em>?”</p><p>The Auror in the doorway is watching him far more carefully now, his partner stepping up from around the corner, both of them slowly shaking their heads.</p><p>Harry stares them down, “Because when I do the reading, it comes back perfectly neutral.” They blink. “Which makes me wonder just what the hell you think you are doing treating a seven-year-old like a criminal.”</p><p> </p><p>Things quickly get resolved from there. Draco assumes his usual haughty attitude, something he rather clearly copied straight off his father, demanding an official apology and a guarantee that Thornston will be reprimanded and never be let on a case concerning his family again.</p><p>And as he leaves with his son, he gives a single neutral nod in Harry’s direction, only a brief flicker in his eyes giving away his desperate sort of gratefulness for Harry’s intereference. Because, these days, people have to be grateful for getting fair treatment at the Minsitry.</p><p>Yes, Harry hates what the Wizarding World has become, hates that the sacrifices he himself and so many of his loved ones made are what led to this.</p><p>Because he doubts that this is the Wizarding Britain any of them ever dreamed of creating.</p><p>+++</p><p>“Listen to yourself,” he practically snarls at Ron, having dragged his best friend towards Hermione’s office the second Draco and his son left the Ministry. Because today simply went too far and his friends still don’t seem to see a problem with anything that happened. “I get the anger against Malfoy or Zabini or whoever else, I do. But this is a <em>kid</em> we are talking about. A <em>child</em>. You are justifying the Ministry going after a seven-year-old, calling it righteous.”</p><p>He is so angry, he can feel the heat of his own magic fill the room, utter fury pulsing through him.</p><p>“This is not justice,” he adds in a snarl. “Go after the parents if you really want to, send them all to Azkaban for all I care if you really think that is the way to go, but what the fuck are you doing going after little children?”</p><p>Hermione actually closes her eyes at that, while Ron continues to stare back stubbornly, even though Harry can see something far less certain lurking in his eyes now. Still, neither of them says anything.</p><p>Harry snorts, something almost disgusted curling through him, honestly can’t recall at what point his best friends turned from their kid versions – who stuck by him through a war they had no part in starting, fought for justice and peace and equality with everything in them – into these bigoted, uncompromising, zealous versions of themselves that will sooner break all of their own principles than risk conceding the slightest bit of ground to ‘the other side’.</p><p>“What the fuck happened to you?” Harry asks, honestly baffled, but mostly feels simply resigned, sad, mourning for their long-gone younger selves, his best friends who Harry had loved more than anything else in this entire world. “What happened to the Magical World we fought for, the one we sacrificed for, the world so many from our side died for?” he asks, can’t quite help some of the accusation in his own voice. “Why are we still taking revenge on the other side even after we won.”</p><p>“My brother died!” Ron exclaims furiously, face reddening in his anger.</p><p>“I know!” Harry returns just as heatedly. “But if you are out for revenge, then at least have the decency to admit as much, instead of patting yourself on the back for going after children and calling it <em>justice</em>.”</p><p>+++</p><p>It’s been three months since that particular fight and Harry hasn’t spoken so much as a single word to either of them since.</p><p>But Harry is done. He excused their behavior for too long already, couldn’t quite make himself let go of his memories of them, of how they used to be. Neither Ron or Hermione try to reach out to him either.</p><p>Instead, the so reviled other side of the aisle, the darker families, the ones who stuck around in the hopes of being able to rebuild their world into something better, something balanced, something where no magical affiliation was seen as better or worse than the other, start reaching him out to him.</p><p>Somehow word of how Harry stepped in to get Scorpius out of that mess at the Ministry apparently spreading slightly in the right circles. Harry doesn’t mind. Not a single person tries to abuse his comparative sympathy for the dark side, never daring to call on him when the accusations levied at them actually have merit, but it seems a generally acknowledged fact amongst the families with darker leanings that Harry will absolutely step in whenever it’s about children.</p><p>Of course, it all starts with Draco.</p><p>When Harry is just minding his own business in his own home and his Floo suddenly starts flaring and Draco promptly appears in the flames as soon as Harry gives access.</p><p>“Blaise needs you,” is all the man says, urgently, almost desperately, and it’s his tone that has Harry immediately stepping forward through the floo, doesn’t even bother asking Draco whether he’s been cleared to step through, simply assuming Draco will have had that foresight. He’s proven right, easily steps into Malfoy Manor, only for Draco to instantly send him through his floo to Zabini Manor instead.</p><p>He arrives to a crying nine-year-old girl and a darkly scowling Blaise, fear lurking in his eyes, as he paces in front of his daughter, eyes immediately settling on Harry the moment he steps through, desperation in his eyes mixed with anger at his own helplessness. There are no words spoken but Harry doesn’t need to ask to know what happened here.</p><p>He can feel the dark magic hanging in the air, quite a bit of it actually, though clearly without any intent within the soft curls of magic filling the room. Accidental magic. A rather powerful, abrupt release of it.</p><p>It’s what happens when children suppress their natural magic for too long.</p><p>He doesn’t get the time to ask for details, before the wards around them are already vibrating, shuddering with the Ministry’s demand for entry. The Aurors forever delighted to follow any alerts about dark magic that they receive from their various tools and spells, tuned like the general magic detection wards covering their country.</p><p>Harry knows they’ll have less than a minute before the Aurors will bring down the wards with that all-purpose-ward-breaking-key Hermione came up with a few years back. Quite possibly, the Aurors won’t even have the decency to wait that long before they use it to force their way inside.</p><p>Harry truly hates some of Hermione’s inventions. For all her genius, she rarely considers how people might use the rather powerful tools she keeps handing them.</p><p>“I’m here to help you neutralize the dark objects you found in your vault,” Harry asserts, catching Blaise’s eyes, even as he sends his magic out throughout the house, a general summon for some dark artifacts to gather in front of him. “You made an appointment weeks ago. Your daughter is crying because the sudden release from the object I just neutralized scared her.”</p><p>Blaise stares back at him. Another second passes. And then he nods, throws a glance at his wife who – to her credit – is already ahead of her husband, waving her wand to glamor her own puffy eyes, sends another spell at her husband to fix his disheveled hair, all the while Blaise is already doing the required incantation to grant whoever is ‘knocking’ entry to his home.</p><p>The few seconds between the wards coming down and the Aurors storming inside are barely enough for Harry to simply <em>will</em> a runic cleansing circle into place right there in front of him and rip the dark magic from two of the objects collected on the table to the side.</p><p>And then the Aurors are flooding the room, yelling harshly about raised wands and ‘don’t even try anything, Zabini’.</p><p>Everyone comes to a rather abrupt stop when they see Harry kneeling on the floor, clearly in the middle of a ritual. With Blaise and his wife looking perfectly put together, if a little irritated at the interruption, and only the little girl looking scared, which might as well be due to the sudden appearance of about nine Aurors in her living room.</p><p>There is a pause, no one apparently sure what to make of this rather innocuous little scene they just burst into.</p><p>“What is the meaning of this?” Harry then asks slowly, raising his head from where he had supposedly been focused on the ritual circle in front of him, doesn’t bother hiding his anger. “I’m in the middle of a cleansing ritual.” Everyone knows that cleansing rituals are particularly volatile and not to be interrupted under any circumstances.</p><p>The Aurors blink at him.</p><p>“Harry?” he hears Ron’s voice from somewhere at the back of the group.</p><p>“Ron,” he returns, frown still in place. “What are you doing just bursting in here?”</p><p>“We detected a burst of dark magic from Zabini Manor,” Ron says, careful, something almost suspicious about the way he eyes Harry. “We came to investigate.”</p><p>Harry nods. “There should have been two spikes, actually,” he claims easily, waves his hand at the two objects he practically tore the dark magic from in the few seconds he had. “Blaise called me to help him neutralize some family heirlooms he found in his vault.”</p><p>Then, he tilts his head. “But it should have been minimal dark magic bursts at best, nothing particularly notable before it instantly dissipated once more as is typical for this sort of cleansing. It definitely should not have been enough to alert the warning systems, or I would have alerted the DMLE beforehand.” He pauses, narrows his eyes in pretend-thought. “So, I ask again, why you are interrupting a rather volatile ritual by bursting in here like you are expecting the next Dark Lord to be throwing a get-together in Blaise’s living room. Hermione’s detection wards shouldn’t even have picked up on this.”</p><p>Ron scowls but doesn’t reply.</p><p>Harry lets his lips tilt into a sardonic smile. “Ah, I take it you tuned the settings of Hermione’s detection wards again, did you?  Made it a little more sensitive. To the point where the fluctuation of me <em>cleansing</em> dark magic now has you salivating at the thought of saving the world from the next dark lord.”</p><p>Ron looks furious, never one to take any sort of humiliation well and the dark glance he throws Harry as the Aurors leave makes it rather clear that he shouldn’t expect his former best friends to try and get into contact with him any time soon.</p><p>Once everyone is gone again, Harry sighs, waves his hand to erase the runic circle and picks up the two artifacts he ‘cleansed’. “I hope these weren’t anything too valuable,” he says as he hands the twisty looking metal key and the deceptively plain glass bowl back to Blaise. “I didn’t have time to ask.”</p><p>The man just waves him off as he takes the two items, clearly couldn’t care less about whichever family heirlooms Harry just rendered useless in his attempt to throw the Aurors off. Instead, he meets Harry’s eyes, expression serious. “Thank you, Lord Potter,” he says. “For your help.” And then the man actually bows to him.</p><p>Harry sighs, tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep-deprivation and is far more about his exhaustion at seeing the world he fought so hard for deteriorating ever-further towards a caricature of what he had always imagined it could be.</p><p>Maybe it’s time he lets those families that are suffering the most for their country’s Light craze in on the fact that things are far beyond fixing any longer, that trying to help rebuild won’t make a difference down the line.</p><p>“Lord Zabini,” Harry says. “I know you and some of the others deliberately stayed behind to help rebuild magical Britain. But, honestly, I think we are long past that point now. If I were you, I’d take my family and try to find a corner of this world where you don’t have to fear your own child’s accidental magic sending you and your family to jail.”</p><p>He watches Zabini’s mouth tilt down, though his eyes are sharp, giving Harry the impression that the man felt enough of his magic to know what sort of title Harry carries these days, officially acknowledged or not.</p><p>So, Harry decides to be a little more direct in his phrasing, willing to acknowledge his own status if that means the darker families get some sort of warning regarding what’s coming for their world. He’d do the same for everyone else, if only the Light side would ever deign to listen to him tell them that the world as they know it is ending and there is nothing whatsoever they can do about it. Not anymore.</p><p>He meets Blaise’s eyes. “The balance has failed,” he says calmly, even if he feels anything but, watches the man’s eyes widen at the statement, sees the same sort of reaction from Lady Zabini from the corner of his eye. “I do not know how much longer until the balance topples entirely. I’m not speaking in years here, at best it’s months, maybe only weeks until it finally crumbles entirely, most likely starting here in Britain and it won’t take long until it moves towards other parts of the world as well.”</p><p>“It’s already that bad?” Zabini asks him, a quick, desperate glance over at his daughter.</p><p>Harry nods. “And it will spread. <em>Everywhere</em>,” he intones solemnly. “It has already started.” He smiles sardonically. “It likely started years ago, before either of us was ever born, with magical creatures dying out and wizarding folk being born weaker and weaker each generation, less magic being fed into the balance, ever spiraling towards nothing, not a single country on earth actually working to ever keep the balance throughout history, forever teetering on the edge of the extreme on either side.”</p><p>He sees Blaise’s wife clutch at her daughter, something so desperate in her eyes. Because those raised in the old traditions know what it means for the balance to be failing, know about the devastating effects it will drag their world into. It took Harry years of research, having to rely on books from other countries due to the rather harsh censoring of certain information in his part of the world, to find the theories and treatises writting about what would happen in a scenario where Magick leaves their planet. Even if it’s all been theoretical so far.</p><p>Harry looks back at Blaise, tries to impress the severity of the situation on him. “So, take your family, go wherever in this world will hold out the longest, find a place where you can feed as much dark magic into the balance as you can without getting arrested for it, maybe helping to stave things off for just a little longer. Maybe even enough time to prepare yourself and possibly even to let your daughter still hold her first wand, see what her life might have been like, before the ley lines collapse, before magic crumbles out from underneath us and leaves our planet entirely.”</p><p>A breath punches out of Zabini. “It can’t be fixed?” The slightest pause. “<em>You</em> can’t fix it?”</p><p>“I cannot,” Harry confirms as much as the mere thought of it pains him, magic itself humming her loss forlornly into his ear. “Sadly, it is too late for me to do anything anymore.”</p><p>+++</p><p>
  <em>But what if it wasn’t?</em>
</p><p>It’s a random thought, but one that won’t leave him alone even once he is back home again, sitting in his study, staring into the merrily flickering flames of the fire place in front of him.</p><p>
  <em>What if it wasn’t too late yet?</em>
</p><p>Just a few decades ago, Magick still had enough strength to create another dark lord in Voldemort, so Magick must still have been fine then, possibly starting to feel the effects of the toppling balance and thus deciding to create another dark lord so soon after Grindelwald’s defeat, but still strong enough to do so.</p><p>In direct contrast to now.</p><p>
  <em>Hm, now there’s a thought.</em>
</p><p>Because, what if he could stop that last instant, the straw that broke the camel’s back, that last push that toppled the balance.</p><p>
  <em>What if <strong>I</strong> wasn’t too late?</em>
</p><p>He tilts his head in contemplation, even as the magic that forever surrounds him these days hums in excitement, forever connected to him, to his thoughts, to his very self, privy to all that he is, a constant companion. A companion he is in no way prepared to lose once things really start going downhill in this world, when Magick dies out completely, leaving behind a magic-less husk of what their world once used to be.</p><p>Magick hums all around him in her enthusiasm at where his thoughts are taking him, the thought of maybe having a chance to make things better after all, iridescent to his senses in her joy, and Harry feels a slight grin tug at the corners of his lips in reaction.</p><p>Well, it’s been a while since he’s done something utterly insane for the sole purpose of saving everything he holds dear. The whole saving-the-world-while-he’s-at-it thing tends to just be an unintended side-effect as far as he is concerned.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So, no idea whether I’ll actually manage to continue this, but the idea for this premise has been ghosting through my mind for a long long time now. If I do add to this, then it will likely turn into Harry/Voldemort, though with a sane Tom and a magically rather overpowered Harry, even if all the changes he’ll be trying to make will be on the political end of things, might even go all the way into the international arena, with Harry poking at things globally instead of just sticking to one country. In other words, this is going to be perfectly self-indulgent and a culmination of everything I adore about the HP fandom.</p><p>Would love to know what you think :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The plan</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>That same thought keeps circling through Harry’s mind in the days afterwards.</p><p>The <em>what if it wasn’t too late? What if I could still change things, make them better? What if I could prevent the balance from ever toppling in the first place? What if I could still save Magick? </em></p><p>However, as obvious as a solution as time travel might seem for that particular problem, there is also a very good reason why wizards in general aren’t just skipping willy-nilly through time to shift history as they please to fit better with whatever they themselves might prefer on a personal basis.</p><p>First of all, time travel generally doesn’t tend to be the best of ideas, tends to make things worse instead of better, or at the very least utterly unpredictable. However, Harry would like to point out that between Magick dying entirely and, well, quite literally any other outcome, surely, messing with the timestream is a rather small price to pay.</p><p>Secondly, there is the fact that time travel itself requires quite a bit of power, in order to shift the universe in relation to you, or your entire self in relation to the universe, whichever way you want to look at it. Although, the power requirements aren’t really a problem for Harry either. He is more than powerful enough for the required sort of temporal displacement ritual. Easily.</p><p>Then there is also the fact that the timeline doesn’t actually like being messed with. Like, at all. Once the timeline has settled into a certain progression of events it tends to hold rather fast to all the twists and turns that got it there. Especially, since any change made in the past affects everything that happens after. You know, since there is no such thing as parallel universe. Far smarter wizards and witches than Harry have long-since proven that fact, proven that Magick herself makes it so.</p><p>Magick is a singular, continuous entity, pervading their world wholly and completely. Magick is all-encompassing, all-powerful, and she keeps the world as is, good or bad, as a singular entity to mirror herself. Magick will not accept for there to be more than one version of herself at any given point in time.</p><p>However, it’s also for that same reason, Harry isn’t really worried about ‘the universe’ or ‘the timeline’ or ‘the powers that be’ trying to stop him from meddling with time. Considering the fact that Magick is humming ever-cheerfully in his ear at the thought of him going back and fixing things, he thinks his chances of succeeding are rather good. Excellent, even.</p><p>No, the main problem with time travel are the preparations, the logistics.</p><p>By which he doesn’t mean the question of what exactly he should take with him, since the answer he came to upon asking himself that question was a rather prompt ‘pretty much everything’, including his gold from Gringotts as well as anything else in his vaults, as many books as he can get his hands on – especially of the variety of law books and Ministry records spanning about a century back since that’s what he’ll mainly need to change if he is going to make a lasting difference on how things went this time around – and any mementos from this life that he thinks he might miss otherwise. Like he said, pretty much everything he owns, and quite a few things that he is just ‘borrowing momentarily’ from others.</p><p>So, those preparations are easy.</p><p>However, the magical side of the required preparations are quite a bit more difficult. First, he does a whole lot of research and quickly comes to the conclusion that no matter how much magic he’ll be able to push into the displacement ritual and no matter how much support he’ll get from Magick herself, there are still some things he’ll need to prepare beforehand. At least if he wants any chance of ending up even in the general temporal vicinity of when he is intending to go.</p><p>Thus, more research. Which is made quite a bit easier by Magick humming rather pointedly in his ear whenever he comes across anything she deems relevant in the books he is reading, practically highlighting the pages or passages he needs, a soft glow of magic wherever he needs to direct his attention. Like some sort of magical, perfectly convenient search engine.</p><p>Magick promptly pouts when that particular comparison pops into Harry’s head, apparently not at all delighted with being called ‘magical google’ even if only in his thoughts.</p><p>It should be ridiculous, the idea of an archaic, all-powerful entity like Magick more or less pouting at something so simple. Then again, the fact that Magick is ancient and childish and all-encompassing at the same time, generous and cruel in equal measure, just as terrifyingly beautiful as it is breathtakingly grotesque, full of haunting despair and unmitigated joy and utter indifference, vindictive and playful and exhilarating, the fact that Magick is <em>everything</em> to be found on their planet at once, is nothing new to Harry at all. Certain bouts of childishness go hand in hand with moments where the vast, consuming presence of primal power has Harry feeling like he is staring into a terrifying abyss, no beginning, no end, no way to escape.</p><p>So, he leaves her to feel childish at the moment and instead focuses back on his research, determined to figure this out as quickly as he can now that he has made up his mind to travel back in time at all, lest he takes too long and Magick herself might already have faded too much to aid him any longer by the time he figures out how to travel back and by that point, without any magic in his world remaining, he won’t be able to do anything at all any longer.</p><p>The point is, time travel requires quite a bit of preparation, certain runic circles to be interwoven and magics to be invoked, or you’re going to end up anywhere but where you actually wanted to go. Sure, Harry thinks it’s quite likely that if you have enough magic, you can certainly have magic let you travel <em>somewhere</em> even without all of these preparations. But without the correct anchor to lead you through the timestream, you are just as likely to end up on the other side of the planet some time during the stone age as you are to find yourself a few steps to your left a couple of millennia into the future.</p><p>There are too many options along the stream of time, too many locations around the planet for magic to displace you to.</p><p>So, the one thing all rituals and treatises and theories about time travel seem to agree on is that fact that you need an anchor, something that bridges the ‘now’ and the ‘then’ for your magic to anchor itself in and drag you along that connection.</p><p>Like timeturners, anchors between two time points in themselves by existing in the past and present, but even then, in order to use a timeturner, you need to have had it in your possession, on your person, for at least as long as you are intending to travel into the past, your magic needing to have infused the timeturner continuously along the time-to-be-crossed. According to the book Harry paged through about timeturners, no one ever figured out where those people who tried to use timeturners without fulfilling that requirement might have ended up, simply disappearing and never to be heard of again. Harry figures the only reason he himself didn’t get displaced during that whole thing in third year must have been because Hermione, as the actual owner of timeturner, was the one who used it to transport them both. Which does kind of make sense.</p><p>But it’s also rather irrelevant to Harry’s current problem.</p><p>Because, every single book he reads on time travel, ‘theoretically’ laying out the detailed runic circles you’d need for the – definitely illegal – rituals that would enable you to time travel at all, seems to agree that for ritual-based time travel you need a living, breathing anchor, one with magic, alive now and back then in order to let you use their magic as your guiding anchor through the flow of time. More problematic is the fact that all the books then promptly agree that the best, most suited, most reliable anchor would be your own younger self, preferably not before birth but at most the day of your conception. Because following your own existence through time simply works best.</p><p>Which, however, isn’t far enough into the past for what Harry is planning to do.</p><p>Because, even if he were to travel back to the day of his own birth, it likely won’t be enough to truly let him change anything. By the time Harry was born, Voldemort was already insane, meaning the balance had at the very least already been in the process of toppling.</p><p>He doesn’t even have an exact point in time for when the balance might finally have toppled, had given way, finally crumbled under the pressure locally and then ever-spreading outwards with no counter-weight to be found anywhere. By the time he grew into his full magical potential, once the horcrux was gone, his magic finally unfettered by any binds placed upon him by either side, by the time he attained his title of Lord of Magick, things had already progressed too far.</p><p>He doesn’t even know what the-balance-as-it-should-be <em>feels</em> like, never got to experience it, a thought that has Magick humming mournfully in his ear, aimlessly tugging at him like she’d like to show him but has nowhere to guide him, no place to take him where things would still be as they should be. Not in this time.</p><p>Which, however, is the entire point.</p><p>Back then, when he first got his newest title and even once he finally realized that anything was wrong at all, it had taken him a while still to realize what was making him feel so very unsettled, what exactly was happening all around the world, no matter where he decided to travel, who he met, how he lived his life. And by then there had been nothing that could be done anymore, the cancer of the failing balance having already spread too far.</p><p>These days it’s a constant awareness. Magic itself calling out to him, calling to him to save her, to save her children, to save them all.</p><p>And Harry can’t do anything. The balance has already failed and what is happening now is only the aftermath, the slow descent, a creeping, ever more quickly spiraling process, Britain’s zeal the starting point but in no way the sole reason for the failing balance, a quite-possibly-not-entirely-coincidental tendency towards the Light sweeping their planet, no balancing Dark to be found anywhere or ever-dwindling worldwide, dragging their entire world towards its magical demise. There just isn’t enough dark magic left to find any sort of balance anymore. Hell, there is barely any <em>grey</em> magic left.</p><p>Only light. Blinding, brilliant, bright light magic.</p><p>These days Harry is even fairly certain that very fact must have been the reason why Tom went so utterly insane so quickly. Sure, Tom’s decision to split his soul likely helped his worsening insanity along rather neatly, but Harry can only imagine how quickly and brutally Magick would have latched on to the Dark Lord finally feeding into the balance once more.</p><p>Tom likely never stood a chance, trying to feed dark magic into the ley lines, his own magic and Magick herself spurring him on, until he practically drowned in it, lost himself to the power he was trying to protect.</p><p>In comparison, Harry has it much easier. His status sees to it that he can use light and dark magic in equal measure, but he is beholden to neither. Then again, even to him the blinding glare of the Light is almost painful now and for all the power he has, his magic is grey, merely the middle ground and not what is missing to keep, much less to restore, the balance.</p><p>However.</p><p>The point is that Magick clearly still had the power to create another Dark Lord less than a century ago, which should only be possible if there had still been enough dark magic in the world for a Dark Lord to be born <em>from</em>.</p><p>The turning point of the balance, the point in time where everything fell apart, seems to have been somewhere between Grindelwald and Voldemort, somewhere in between the Dark Lord who chose insanity and the one who was more or less forced into it.</p><p>It’s a rather narrow time window, all things considered, but also still close enough that Harry at least has options of how to anchor his time travel to that particular time.</p><p>He frowns.</p><p>There are a few theoretical mentions in the books spread out in front of him, hypothesizing that if one were to aim for traveling further back than their own existence in this world, then they’d still need an a living, breathing anchor, someone who you are magically connected to in your own time, to let you follow the thread of that existence through the stream of time until your chosen point.</p><p>Which means he needs someone else to serve as his anchor, someone who is older than he is, someone who was around before Tom lost himself to his alter ego Voldemort, someone who was alive back then and is still alive now.</p><p>Harry briefly considers whether he should try to find Fawkes, ask the phoenix for his help, certain the loyal bird would help, likely just as aware of their world crumbling out from underneath their feet as Harry is. But who knows when Harry will end up with an immortal anchor, hasn’t found a single mention of how to even restrict time travel to a certain point in time while using a creature of magic as an anchor, much less an immortal one.</p><p>Traveling too far into the past will be just as useless as not traveling at all. He needs to be here, in Britain, when the balance starts toppling, some time after Grindelwald fell and before Voldemort’s rein began. Magick was fine before that. It doesn’t need him a couple millennia in the past.</p><p>So, what he needs is another wizard, someone with a normal life span to serve as his anchor, someone who is from his parents’ or his grandparents’ generation and who he knows well enough to even want to approach with this plan in the current political climate.</p><p>You know, since anyone on the Light Side is out just on principle. If only because to them, magic right now is likely feeling wonderful, clean and so purely light. Trying to convince any of them that it’s not actually a good thing for magic to feel like this is going to be difficult, if not impossible, and will quite likely end with someone calling the Aurors on Harry for considering time travel at all, which is very much not legal.</p><p>Which leaves the Dark Side.</p><p>Harry tilts his head.</p><p>Well, if there is one family he knows that is dedicated to the Dark and Magick herself it’s the Malfoys. And Draco had definitely picked up on just what position Harry holds these days. Goes to reason the same would be doubly true for his parents then.</p><p>Lucius and Narcissa were kids right around the time where Tom must have been at his most charismatic, right after his travels and after already having a few horcruxes under his belt, already a Lord of Dark Magic as chosen by Magick herself but not yet having been dragged down the path of insanity.</p><p>Or, well, at least not entirely yet.</p><p>Harry hums thoughtfully to himself, leaning back in his chair as Magick curls softly around his core, intertwining with his own magic, anticipation and joyful exhilaration and utter contentment permeating her presence, pervading his senses, filling the entire room around him as the plan fully crystallizes in his mind.</p><p>Yes, the elder Malfoys might just be perfect for what Harry has in mind.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So, preparations, and next chapter will be the actual time travel. As always, would love to know what you think :D</p><p>And thanks so much for all your comments and kudos</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The ritual</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You want to do what now?” Draco is staring at him rather incredulously. They are in Draco’s study in Malfoy Manor, settled in the armchairs arranged comfortably around the fireplace.</p><p>Their conversation might have started out perfectly cordially, but by now Draco is eyeing Harry like he might have entirely lost it this time around.</p><p>Then again, even Harry can admit that his plan is a little further… out there than even he tends to usually be comfortable with. You know, if it weren’t for the fact that the fate of their world and Magick herself is quite literally hanging in the balance.</p><p>“I will travel to the past,” Harry asserts again calmly. “And fix this.”</p><p>Draco blinks, pauses for another moment as though waiting for Harry to continue before he repeats rather doubtfully, “Fix this.” Another pause. “And by ‘this’ you mean Magick in general and also saving the entire world along the way while you are at it.” The mocking in Draco’s voice is more than familiar, so many years of their youth spent on thinking that the other must be the worst thing they’ll ever have to deal with in their lives. Then, the war happened. And that certainly put everything else into rather harsh perspective.</p><p>Then again, after so many years of poking at each other and each other’s tempers, Harry can absolutely recognize the thoughtful sort of hesitation in Draco’s eyes. Not to even mention the hope, the desperate wish that things might still have a chance to change for the better, a chance for their world to remain whole and healthy, for Magick to remain pulsing ever-bright and luminescent right beneath their feet and all around them, the one constant in this world.</p><p>So, Harry sighs and then proceeds to give his schoolyard rival a somewhat more comprehensive account of what he is planning to do, the things he specifically wants to change. Just as soon as he actually manages to get to the past.</p><p>Draco listens to him, at first still somewhat wide-eyed, but then looking more and more intrigued as Harry talks on.</p><p>“Hm,” he finally hums when Harry finishes, lips quirking up sardonically on one side. “Living up to your title as the ‘Savior of the Wizarding World’, I see.”</p><p>Harry feels his own lips quirking up in reply. Because, yeah, he can certainly see the humor in him being right back where he started when he first found out about magic.  </p><p>But also, “That’s not the title I’m trying to live up to here,” he points out calmly. There is a wry twist to his lips at the thought of the many, many titles he carries these days, not a single one of them actually chosen by him, all of them thrust upon him and forever leaving him struggling to carry their insurmountable weights.</p><p>Savior of the Wizarding World, Master of Death, Lord of Magick, which isn’t even mentioning his previous titles like the Boy-Who-Lived or ‘The Chosen One’. If you ask him, this whole title business has gotten entirely out of hand where he is concerned.</p><p>Draco smirks back at him, the recognition in his eyes telling Harry that he knows exactly which title Harry is specifically referring to right now, which one of his roles he is trying to do justice.</p><p>And then he goes to get his parents.</p><p> </p><p>Lucius and Narcissa do the same as Draco had, listen to Harry explain his plans – first doubtfully, then with increasing interest – all the while watching him carefully, something respectful about the way Lucius especially treats Harry with. They certainly seem to recognize his recent status as one of Magick’s Chosen same as their son does.</p><p>For all that the man still comports himself in a way that is the very definition of aristocratic arrogance, the sort of elitist better-than-thou way of looking down his nose at the world, Lucius had gotten rather quickly over the whole being-put-in-Azkaban thing or the fact that Harry defeated his master. Harry can even admire the man for somehow managing to keep himself out of Azkaban in the aftermath of Voldemort’s defeat once more, except for that brief stint where no one quite knew what to do with him. Then again, Harry is fairly certain that, by the end of the war, Lucius was just as much fighting for his family’s survival as everyone else in their world, that the man felt just as relieved to have gotten rid of the tyrant trying to rule them with sadistic cruelty and no sense of humanity as everyone else had.</p><p>To this day, Lucius hasn’t said anything to him about it. But it is more than clear in the way he treats Harry, like a sort of equal to be respected, in the way he never so much as mentions bloodpurity or wizard supremacy in Harry’s presence. Clearly, Lucius Malfoy learned a couple of lessons in the last war, possibly even including the fact that your ancestry tends to have very little to do with the amount of good or the amount of damage you can bring about in this world.</p><p>Although, now, sitting here after listening to Harry describe the rather hopeless state of their world, there is something so devastatingly sad about the two elder Malfoys, mirrored in the grim twist around Draco’s mouth.</p><p>“It’s too late for us?” Lucius finally asks him calmly when Harry is done explaining everything again.</p><p>Because of course these three understand. This family who despite the Ministry’s best efforts to curb any dark magic in this country still feel just as naturally dark to Harry as they always have, clearly have refused to let the Ministry dictate what sort of magics one is supposedly allowed to practice in their own homes, likely follow the rather archaic beliefs of it being an insult to Magick herself to so much as try to twist your core into something different than whatever Magick deemed it to be… Yes, Harry isn’t at all surprised that the three of them would perfectly understand not only what the balance having toppled means in the long run, but also understand the implications of Harry planning to travel back in time with the explicit purpose of changing things and without any intention of ever coming back.</p><p>They understand that if Harry leaves this timeline, this particular version of their world will start to disappear the instant he does so. Magick will not allow for alternate versions of herself to exist, won’t tolerate a timeline where she herself is dying out to exist right next to one where Harry will hopefully be able to fix things.</p><p>The Malfoys understand that Harry traveling back through time will change too much to know what the consequences might turn out to be for any of them on a personal level.</p><p>Still, Harry nods. “The balance has already toppled and the effects have long-since started spreading. There is no part of this world that hasn’t already been affected and it’s only continually creeping ever-forward.” He sighs out. “At this point even Magick herself knows there is no saving her. She is however rather… excited at the idea of getting another try.”</p><p>That last comment has the Malfoys collectively blinking at him, likely at the way he talks about magic.</p><p>Then again, his magic has always been something alive to his senses, something that lives and breathes and exists right alongside him, around him, within him, since long before he ever became what he is now. No, the main revelation about attaining his current title was the realization that there is a rather big difference between just his personal magic and <em>Magick</em> as it pervades their entire world.</p><p> “Traveling through time is dangerous,” Lucius finally pushes past everything to caution him carefully, tone neutral but the look in his eyes telling Harry that the man isn’t necessarily expecting his warning to make any sort of difference to him. Harry tilts his head as he watches Lucius right back. If anything, it almost sounds like Lucius is trying to warn him of potential difficulties, as though to make sure Harry will truly be able to pull through on the other end if he attempts saving their world at all.</p><p>Which, alright, not at all the reaction he had expected, but he’ll most certainly take it.</p><p>“Magick will guide me,” Harry replies calmly, like that is all that needs to be said on that particular issue. Which it kind of is. “The reason I’m here is because I need an anchor to tie my travel through time to. Using my younger self is out, because, by the time I was born, it was likely already too late to truly change anything anymore. It might give me a chance at slowing the process but probably not let me prevent it. I need to go further back.”</p><p>Lucius is nodding in thoughtful agreement, apparently having enough knowledge about the not-particularly-legal practical applications for time travel to understand where Harry is coming from, in definite contrast to the other two Malfoys who rather clearly have no idea what Harry is talking about at this point.</p><p>Harry shrugs, relieved that he won’t have to explain his research of the past couple of weeks. “If I want a chance at truly changing things, I need to be at a time where Tom hasn’t quite lost himself to his alter ego yet.” Finally, he feels his lips quirking upwards, losing some of his somber air as he adds, “If I want a chance at saving Magick, I first need to save the Dark Lord whose creation she clearly put so much of herself into.”</p><p>A second.</p><p>“Well,” Draco comments as all three Malfoys are blinking at him in rather apparent surprise, trying to parse through that statement. “Would you listen to that. Harry Potter planning to save the Dark Lord. Now, that’s certainly not something I ever expected to hear from you in particular.”</p><p>Harry snorts. “You’re telling me,” he grins at Draco. “Who knew that the prophecy proclaiming me the only one able to vanquish the Dark Lord was never intended as the grand foretelling of the long-awaited savior of the Light it was interpreted as by both sides, but rather meant as a warning for how badly things might go if I were to do just that.”</p><p>Draco blinks once in obvious surprise at that assertion, then snorts in amusement, to mirror the smile on his mother’s face.</p><p>Even Lucius is looking slightly amused now as he adds, “You want to go as far back as you possibly can, but still restricted within that time window of traveling only a few decades to the past.”</p><p>Harry once more focuses on him. “Exactly.”</p><p>Lucius nods slowly, another moment of hesitation. And then, perfectly casual, “Might I suggest the day of my birth, then.”</p><p>A slight pause, as Harry blinks at the rather oddly specific date. However, then Narcissa is nodding as well. “Lucius is two years older than I am,” she supplies easily at the glance Harry throws her. He had admittedly kind of expected that it would be Narcissa who’d agree to serve as his anchor, that she’d be far more willing to help him than her husband, if only due to their history with each other.</p><p>Lucius adds nonchalantly, “And it should be relatively easy to follow the thread of my existence through time towards the specific day of my birth.”</p><p>Harry frowns. That last bit isn’t making much sense to him. Sure, going as far back as possible is good, but why would the day of Lucius’ birth be easier to target than any other date afterwards.</p><p>Draco can apparently read his confusion on his face because he promptly explains in that usual haughty way of his, “My grandfather would have invoked the family magics with the traditional rituals to give their blessing for the birth of his heir, already intensifying its presence at the Manor. It’s about as intense as the family magics ever get. If you perform the ritual within Malfoy Manor and thus stay within our wards, that day should be a comparatively easy point in time to target.”</p><p><em>Huh</em>, Harry blinks. <em>Well. That’s oddly convenient</em>.</p><p>It’s moments like these which tend to remind him that being a Lord of Magick is one thing, but knowing wizarding customs and everything that comes with it is quite another. He still rather regularly regrets that he didn’t get to grow up around magic, in this world he has called his home since he was eleven, that he missed out on so many things that tend to be so very obvious, self-evident, natural to those who had the luxury of growing up in the magical world.</p><p>Then again, there is a reason why he chose to approach the Malfoys of all people with this particular plan of his. Because they may have been on opposing sides of the war – not to even mention various murder attempts on both sides, sworn feuds between some of them, and blood debts owed between others – but that is just utterly irrelevant to all of them right now, entirely inconsequential when compared to this situation they have found themselves in. Where Magick is dying and Harry is the only one aware <em>and</em> able to do something about it.</p><p>Because for all that the Malfoys, and the Blacks for that matter, are definitely dark wizards – as in, even on the blacker end of the dark spectrum – especially the Malfoy family has never forgotten their connection to Magick, revere her, still honor Magick as she should be honored.</p><p>Harry can tell. If only due to the way Magick is so happily curling through every corner of the manor, twisting around the Malfoys themselves.</p><p>Magick has no sense of human morality, has no need or care for it, for things like laws or rules or ethics as defined by humans, so she would never have cared about things like the war fought between opposing sides of the magical spectrum, wouldn’t have cared about crimes committed and lives taken. But she does care if her children honor her the way they were always supposed to.</p><p>In that the Malfoys are the same as Harry. They are beholden to Magick first and everything else second.</p><p>Seems like coming here, really was the best choice Harry could have made. It’s rather reassuring to hear confirmation that he apparently has the Malfoys on board with his plan.</p><p>+++</p><p>It’s only a few days later that Harry finds himself standing in the ritual room of Malfoy Manor, a dense array of intricately interwoven runes spread across the floor in front of him, carved by Magick into the very fabric of reality.</p><p>Everything is as prepared for the ritual that is supposed to send him back through time as it could be.</p><p>Harry so hopes that for once his unpredictable luck will entirely refrain from getting itself involved and instead he prays for fate or destiny – or whichever higher power seems to so enjoy messing with his life – to simply let things proceed exactly as he is intending for them to. Just this once. Then again, considering that he has Magick herself on his side, he thinks his chances are looking rather good.</p><p>Then, he sees Lucius approaching him from where Narcissa and Draco are still standing a little ways off to the side to watch Harry perform the ritual.</p><p>He turns towards the man. And then blinks in surprise when Lucius proceeds to hold out a letter on fancy gold-trimmed parchment for him to take. “To give to my father,” the man supplies. “He will be able to sense at the very least some of what you are, the position you hold, and he’ll probably even sense your connection to Malfoy family magics. But this will guarantee that he will freely vouch for you on a personal level as well.” He pauses significantly. “Even in front of his Lord.”</p><p><em>Ah</em>. Harry blinks. <em>Well, that is certainly going to be helpful.</em></p><p>Sure, he’d be fine on his own, knows he’ll forge his path either way. But having someone like the Lord Malfoy vouching for him, before the family ever lost standing in Britain, will definitely make everything Harry wants to do much easier, not only with Voldemort but also where anything else with the Ministry is concerned. Considering the political upheaval he is planning to promptly kick loose upon his arrival in the past, it will definitely be much simpler to achieve his goals if he doesn’t have to fight both ends of the political spectrum, if he only has to worry about the more Light-oriented part of the Ministry trying to fight him on various of the policies he is planning to introduce. And some support, especially from someone like the Lord Malfoy of the time, can only help with that.</p><p>“Thank you,” Harry says, as he reaches out to take the letter, meeting the man’s gaze as he does so, honestly meaning it as well.</p><p>Lucius watches him for another second, two. “No,” the man then intones solemnly, bows his head respectfully. “Thank <em>you</em>, Lord Potter. And may Magick herself guide you.”</p><p>+++</p><p>The ritual itself turns out to be rather gentle, despite its significance and the sheer ridiculous amount of power required for him to feed into it. But the ritual itself is just a bright light, a soft brush of wind, a brief floating sensation, and then his feet finding the ground again.</p><p>Harry blinks against the slight disorientation of losing any and all connection to his surroundings for a few moments, the definite shift of the wards of Malfoy Manor around him, the very floor beneath his feet. Only Magick herself a constant companion humming in his ear, tugging at his core, winding through his senses.</p><p>He blinks some more, the power of the ritual still pulsing around him, before he manages to finally rid himself of the spots still dancing in his vision, as he glances around himself. Looks like he is still standing in the Malfoys’ ritual room at the Manor, still in the exact same spot as he had while performing the ritual just moments ago, the inscribed runic circle still surrounding his feet.</p><p>However, across from him, Lucius is gone, the other side of the runic circle, where the man had been providing his magic to serve as Harry’s guiding light through the flow of time, now empty. Same for the spot where Draco and Narcissa had been standing just moments ago to observe.</p><p><em>It worked</em>, he thinks, excited but also somewhat incredulous. Because, it definitely did work. It’s not only the absence of the three Malfoys that tells him as much. No, it’s Magick, the way the oh-so-familiar feeling of her humming cheerfully in his ear has changed, shifted, just as all-encompassing, just as vast, but also <em>more</em> at the same time, shifted into something so much better, darker but somehow even more luminescent in the way the increased Dark enhances the Light shimmering within her. Dark and Light. <em>Balanced</em>.</p><p>The mere feeling of it – something he himself never got to experience, never having gotten to feel what Magick <em>should</em> feel like – is enough to have him a little breathless.</p><p>He can also feel the wards of Malfoy Manor around him, testing him, several brief moments of confusion as the wards try to figure out what to do with someone who doesn’t have access but also does, the past and present and future briefly struggling to find a balance. Before they settle once more, the permission of Lucius, future Lord Malfoy and current Malfoy heir, enough to grant him at least temporary welcome here.</p><p>Then.</p><p>The door to the ritual room crashes open, being thrown open with quite a bit of force, a man with a rather eerie similarity to Lucius standing in the doorway, wand raised, magic dancing around him, prepared for battle. Fully intent to defend himself, his home, his family, against an intruder who should not even have been able to enter a place as fortified against any uninvited guests as the Manor.</p><p>Harry just meets the man’s – Abraxas’ – eyes calmly, lets his own magic flood outwards, lets it fill the room, feels the Malfoy wards eagerly latch on, strengthening themselves with the so readily provided grey magic it likely gets to replenish rather rarely.</p><p>He watches the man’s eyes widen, the wand in his hand tipping down in obvious surprise, grip slackening, though the man’s expression stays impressively unchanged despite his obvious shock.</p><p>“Lord Malfoy,” Harry greets calmly. “I am sorry for my sudden appearance.”</p><p>He tries not to let any of his humor at the current Lord Malfoy’s obvious shock show on his face, still somewhat giddy from the feeling of the magic around him.</p><p>Magick perfectly balanced within itself. As it should be.</p><p>He calmly proceeds to step out of the ritual circle still branded onto the floor, a simple twirl of his fingers erasing all traces of the ritual ever having happened at all, before he adds, “I have been brought here by rather unexpected circumstances, so I do apologize for invading your home unannounced.”</p><p>The current Lord Malfoy watches him, his surprise still obvious, but the glint in his eyes telling Harry the man is already trying to parse through everything he is seeing here, trying to fit it into a complete picture for him to work with.</p><p><em>Well, might as well give him the final piece of the puzzle</em>, Harry thinks.</p><p>“Your son asked me to give you this,” as he holds out the letter in an exact mirror of the situation between him and Lucius, barely a minute ago but also several decades into the future. “For explanations and reassurance.”</p><p>The man blinks down at the letter being held out to him, widened eyes narrowing in thought as his eyes once more find Harry’s. Harry can practically see the very second everything seems to click in the man’s mind. The very moment the man starts calculating how to make the most of the situation he has found himself in so unexpectedly.</p><p>Well. Seems like that shrewd, opportunistic mindset Harry used to so hate about Draco and Lucius, but which had come to rather admire later on in life, really does run in the family.</p><p>Harry shrugs internally, entirely unconcerned. For what he himself is currently planning, for the things he is intending to change, to topple, to tear down and rebuild and make them <em>better</em>, having someone like this on his side – possibly even helping him but at the very least not working against him – can only be a good thing in the long run.</p><p>If anything, he is rather looking forward to it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Tadaa. Finally the actual time travel. Not entirely sure yet how everything is going to develop but I think there will be a few parts that will be a little more time-skippy, if only to speed Harry getting used to the past and meeting some of the more important players along a little.</p><p>Would love to know what you think :D</p><p>And thank you so so much for all your wonderful comments and kudos!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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